


Sound & Fury

by supernatasha



Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gun Violence, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernatasha/pseuds/supernatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sherlock fell,” Bell had said over the phone. Joan did not understand at first, asking if he was okay, asking which hospital he was at, who was his doctor, asking asking asking, not listening until Bell repeated, “Joan, Sherlock fell. He’s dead.”</p><p>AU: Irene is in the brownstone, Sherlock falls, and Joan stumbles about her life as a walking shadow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Is A Tale Told By An Idiot

Sherlock's funeral is held on a dark day. It doesn't quite rain, but one would hesitate to say the sun exists in the sky at all. Everything is grey, grey clouds, grey cars,

_(his corpse is grey when Joan and Irene go to identify it)_

as if the color has been leeched out from them. They gather around the hole in the ground in black clothes with somber faces. It's a small group; they had purposefully kept the details a secret, knowing every past case would want to turn up and give condolences.

A private affair seems more fitting.

Gregson speaks first, calling Holmes a beacon of some sort and throwing around plenty of synonyms. Joan tunes him out as soon as she realizes he's using a generic speech peppered with compliments.

Marcus Bell goes next and Joan looks into his face as he talks. He looks tired, dark circles under his eyes and an uncharacteristic stubble upon his cheeks.

 _(she had gone to him when she came home from the funeral arrangements, saying she needed to talk._ _They both knew she did not; she fucked him hard, all jagged teeth and rough edges)_

She expects him to speak of Sherlock like a martyr, but all he offers is a poem by some woman claiming Sherlock had turned into diamond glints on snow and autumn rain, and she cannot help but think how very much Sherlock would have despised such a mushy display of sentiment.

A large man under an umbrella lingers behind their small party, and Joan knows instinctively that it is Sherlock's father, Mycroft. They have the same focused eyes, the same thin murmuring lips.

Her attention is drawn to Irene when she speaks, lovely golden Irene, whose hair shines even in the drab day, whose skin is ivory and flushed, whose voice is soft, trembling from her painted red lips. Joan does not hear the words, only hears the emotion in them.

At last, she falls silent. There is a moment when Joan wonders who will speak next until she realizes all eyes are on her. She gives a single tense shake of her head. Even if she tries, it will not be coherency escaping her mouth

_(only ugly sounds, shrieks, sobs, sighs, everything she has held back)_

and it will never stop. Surely the speech Gregson gave and Bell's heartfelt poetry and Irene's grief are enough. Joan and Sherlock did not need that kind of commemoration, not in public anyway. What is there to be said? He was not her lover or her partner or her sibling. He was, simply, her other half. And she needs to get this part over with quick.

_(a single swift slash over the blue veins of her wrist)_

Yes, this needs to be over as fast as possible. She has work to be done at home.

;

Home is no longer home. For a time, home was where her mother brought her tea and taught her Mandarin, where her brother teased her, where she fell down the stairs and scarred her knee, where she first discovered porn. Then home was school, where she opened her first medical textbook and found herself running her fingers over the glossy pages, looking at the bones, overcome with a most peculiar desire to take a scalpel and open herself and study what was inside her. Home was University, and her roommate who taught her about desire and the joy of bodies not cut open but whole and aroused.

Home was the brownstone, where Sherlock and she lived, where Irene and Sherlock and Ty and she lived, until Ty got cancer, until Sherlock died.

( _he died shit, fuck fuck FUCK how could he have left her how could he not know he was her heart her home)_

Does she have a home now?

She cannot imagine Sherlock without her, functioning and breathing. It’s strange and almost unbelievable to her that she should still exist here without him. She glances down at her feet curiously; still there. Skin and muscle.

But when she goes to take her next step, she finds that level ground has morphed into steps and she has no bones to support her and down she goes, crumpling at the bottom of the stairs in an undignified heap.

;

She awakens when it’s dark. She’s in bed; a red floral duvet is over her. Joan recognizes it as Irene’s. Her entire body aches as she sits up, and she groans. Irene studies her curiously, a book in one hand. Did she do this? Joan did not think Irene was strong enough to lift her weight. It occurs to her that perhaps she no longer weighs as much as she used to.

“You fell,” Irene says.

( _“Sherlock fell,” Bell had said, over the phone. Joan did not understand at first, asking if he was okay, asking which hospital he was at, who was his doctor, asking asking asking, not listening until Bell repeated, “Joan, Sherlock fell. He’s dead.”)_

“I must have lost my footing,” Joan murmurs.

“You can’t go on like this.”

“Like what?” Joan challenges, absolutely prepared to defend herself.

“Like _this._ You wander around the apartment without eating or sleeping, and sometimes you pick something up and it looks like you’re going to laugh or cry or hurl it against the floor, and other times you don’t look at all, as if you’re barely on the brink of existing. And I know, I _know._ He’s gone and it seems impossible to pick up the pieces. I loved him with all my heart, but even I know I wasn’t as close to him as you were. I don’t think I can even begin to imagine the pain you must be feeling, and a lesser being would succumb to the pain. But I refuse to believe Joan Watson cannot get beyond it. And I am not here to be your gentle morning sunshine, I am here to be the pail of ice cold water thrown in your face to _wake you the fuck up._ ”

Her words knock the wind out of Joan, and she sits there on Irene’s bed with her eyes unfocusing.

“I miss him,” she breathes.

Irene stands and embraces Joan, smelling like soap and cinnamon, and Joan lets herself melt into warm arms. “I know,” Irene soothes.

“That’s why I need to find Moriarty. I need to find him and kill him.”

;

She has not felt this lucid in days. Every single file Sherlock has collected, every note, every errant piece of paper. Joan takes all of it and sits in the center of their living room. She doesn’t quite know how to organize things like Sherlock used to, but she does know how to put the pieces together.

This is what Sherlock has taught her, that if a one-way road leads to a dead end, someone climbed that wall or blew a hole through it or tunneled under it, but they got out. The trail does not end just because her proof does. She has to find more.

Irene drives her to the station. They recognize her, flashing her smiles filled with pity. She tries not to let disdain show on her face.

Bell refuses at first to let her into the evidence room. “You are not our consultant. Sherlock was.”

“Are you telling me you won’t give me any of the files?”

“I’m afraid not. You should probably submit all of Sherlock’s files to the NYPD, as a matter of fact.”

She clenches her jaw together and exhales sharply. They weren’t Sherlock’s files anymore. They were hers. “Bell. I know I can do this. I’ll find Moriarty. Give me a month. Give me a week.”

He stares at her and she can see herself through his eyes, wrinkled top and tired skin stretched gaunt over her cheekbones, the way her fingers tremble clutching the leather straps of her purse

( _and sorrow, can he see sorrow?_ )

and she finally steps closer to him and lowers her voice, whispers, “Marcus, please.”

His resolve breaks. “Don’t let Gregson find out I’m letting you in.”

;

Her first break comes when she’s standing on the roof of the apartment building. There is a phone number she knows is important, but it’s disconnected now and there is no way to track it. The area code claims the number was from Florida, but the state doesn’t fit anywhere in her current research.

She shuts her eyes and the buzzing of bees fills her head, surprisingly calm, numbing.

( _was he numb when he hit the ground? did it hurt? was he high?_ )

And of course she realizes Florida was where the highest number of prescription drugs were sold and it clicks. That’s how the state fits in. That was where the drugs were being exported to, the drug trail she had followed to the phone number- Florida.

Joan runs down to the apartment and flips through a growing list of papers, the list of pharmacists vital. There, in black and white: only one pharmacist who had worked in Florida for years before moving to New York. Langdale Pike, who lives in Elmhurst.

Irene isn’t at home so Joan scribbles a letter and gets ready to leave. Almost out of impulse, she goes through Sherlock’s desk drawer and finds the handgun he had kept for emergencies. He had taken her to the range several times, until she was a good enough shot “to defend against intruders,” not that any of it had ever mattered.

When she gets to his apartment, her heart is already beating against her chest in time to the music from upstairs, some deafening tune with bass thumping, and there is a strange foul stench in her nostrils. She stands at his door and knocks several times before she hears it unlock.

The heavyset man who answers the door stares at her. He says something she can’t make out over the music and her own pulse.

“What?” she shouts.

“Who the fuck are you?” he shouts back.

“I have some questions for you, Mr. Pike.” She scrambles for her purse and reaches behind the gun and lipstick to find the fake ID Sherlock had made for her years ago. She holds it out. _Joan Watson,_ it reads. _FBI agent._

( _impersonating an officer, $10,000 in fines and five years in prison_ )

Pike waves her in but she doesn’t miss his nervous eyes flicking over the ID. He knows something. If Sherlock had ever taught her to follow her instinct, it kicks her in the gut in stiletto heels- this man knows something.

Sitting on his plaid couch surrounded by pizza boxes and beer cans in the poorly lit room, she asks him loudly, “Mr. Pike, you worked in Florida for a pharmacy for several years.”

He nods warily, foot tapping against the carpet too fast for the music from upstairs. “Only four years.”

“Are you aware that the pharmacy where you worked was recently involved in a scandal where millions of dollars’ worth of illegal drugs were confiscated?” She wishes she had brought the report to show him in an effort to seem more professional.

“I heard about it in the news,” Pike tells her. A vein in his forehead throbs, clear enough to make out in the dark.

“Are you still in touch with any of your former employers or coworkers?” Joan can feel her voice already going hoarse with the effort to be heard over the music and her own pulse.

Pike looks at her for a long time until she begins to feel edgy under his gaze, then admits, “One of them e-mailed me last week. Do you want me to go get my laptop?”

She nods eagerly, leaning forward.

He practically leaps off the couch and stumbles over garbage. Joan watches him go, eyes following him until he’s gone around the bend from the room. Alone, she uncrosses her legs and lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She’s going to have a headache from the bass.

Her eyes fall on something glinting silvery on the table. With hesitant hands, she moves a box of takeout. The Apple logo shines in the dim light; his laptop.

Joan reaches for her purse and has the heavy gun clutched in both hands before she realizes it, picking her way through the floor quickly, knowing the music would mask any sounds. With her back pressed flat to the wall, she peeks into the hall. He’s texting someone on his cell.

( _now or never, do it, DO IT_ )

One elbow bent, the other clicking off the safety and holding the gun steady, Joan steps into the hall. Pike notices her immediately. His hands go up, eyes wide. Still aiming for him, she reaches out with her left hand and beckons for the phone.

Pike’s arms are shaking when he holds it out for her. As soon as it leaves his hands, he sprints past her into the living room and Joan panics and her fingers press down on the trigger. Red blooms on the back of Pike’s shirt and he goes down, landing hard facefirst.

Breathe in, breathe out, oh _fuck._

She hadn’t even heard the gun go off. The music, she thinks vaguely. It’s the music. Everything is chaos. Tucking the gun into her waistband, she runs to him and flips him over. All of her medical instinct tells her to stop the blood pouring from his back, but another instinct, the one Sherlock taught her, tells her to get the information she came from.

Bending over him, Joan yells, “Who are you working for?”

Pike gargles something and she lowers her head to be level with his mouth. “Go fuck yourself.”

She leans back, eyes hardening. Her fingers find the hole in his back, warm blood wet wet wet, and she presses at the edges of the wound so he gasps and his back arches in pain. “Tell me,” Joan hisses in his ear.

He dies in her arms.

;

It is not the first time she is responsible for a death.

But the pulling of a trigger is so much different from a patient lying under her scalpel whose heart gave out, whose lungs collapsed, who could not endure surgery. A gun is nothing like stitching up a wound that becomes infected, like poison that cannot be stopped in time, cancer spreading into unsuspecting organs.

Her hands cannot stop shaking.

;

When she steps out of his apartment, it’s dark outside. It had taken her longer than she had thought searching through his apartment to no avail, then ensuring she left no DNA behind and cleaning any trace of herself. Walking out into the street, she realizes there is blood on her trousers and shirt. She pulls her coat shut and buttons it to the top, wiping her hands on the dark fabric and looking at the concrete the entire walk home. The beat of the music stays with her, haunting, echoes in her lungs.

Hours later, she arrives at the brownstone. It’s dark inside, Irene still not back. She works odd hours at galleries and museums and Joan doesn’t know her schedule, but she’s grateful to be alone now. The gun leaves an imprint on her stomach when she undresses and walks into the hot spray of the shower. Dried brownish blood runs down her body, swirling pink in the drain.

She wraps herself in Irene’s warm bathrobe and sits on the dining table, going through Pike's phone. There is only one string of text messages she finds relevant.

[6:13 PM] _some1 is here askng bout fl operation._

[6:13 PM] _Cop? Reporter?_

[6:13 PM] _asian chik. fbi badge. mite be fake._

[6:14 PM] _Call this number and stall; they’ll come take care of her for you._

The last message is the one Pike never got to read. The number is for a 917 New York cell. She sits there staring at the number until the door opens.

“Joan!” Irene’s voice trills through the foyer, like a bird lost far from home, and with her comes gleaming light into Joan's dark corner. "I brought Chinese. I hope you’re hungry."

"In here," Joan calls.

Irene comes into the kitchen, holding bags of takeout. She leaves the bags on the table and heads for the bathroom, still talking about extra egg rolls. Her voice stops abruptly. When she reappears in the kitchen, her eyes are wide, face pale. “Joan,” her voice trembles. “Joan, the bloody clothes… there’s a gun.”

"Yeah. There is."

The other woman doesn't reply. She crosses her arms over her chest, the food cooling between them, Joan still holding Pike's cell phone.

Joan whispers, "I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean for him to die."

It takes Irene only a few seconds to recover, but within those meager moments, the hurt look on her face is enough for Joan's eyes to fill up with unshed tears

_(the look of disgust, of horror, how could anyone do this? how could you do this?)_

and for a strangled sob to escape from her throat, despair and regret. Irene is around the table then, hugging Joan, murmuring soothing nothings, the scent of her perfume and shampoo enveloping Joan like blood had only hours ago and she lets go in her warm embrace.

Irene kneels to her knees and wipes her tears before she can taste salt. "You're okay. You'll be fine. We're going to figure this out, okay? Together."

"Thank you," Joan whispers, not realizing, not being the least bit aware when her lips press against Irene's painted ones softly, her hands in the silk of blonde hair and fingers on warm skin. When she pulls away, heat rising in her cheeks and pooling in her belly, Irene is breathing hard and her eyes are dark.

And she blinks, just once as if taking in an incredible sight. Then the pressure of her lips returns fierce and demanding and stale lipstick. All the words sticking to the roof of Joan's mouth, Irene runs her tongue along them and tastes bitterness and anger and the blueprints of revenge so deep that Irene shivers- and she is unsure if she does it because there is sorrow on her taste buds or if it's Joan's fingers pulling up the hem of her shirt and the sudden chill that comes with autumn air on her flesh.

They find themselves in Irene's bedroom, with her red duvet plastered with flowers and the smell of scented candles hanging off her walls. Joan lays her flat on her back and kisses a trail of goose bumps down her salty neck and abdomen, over the rising swell of breasts, crescendos of hipbones, tiny prickles of hair rising in response to her touch like petals reaching out from a flower. Joan's tongue finds Irene wet and she watches through her eyelashes as Irene's back arches and writhes and she comes undone within minutes.  And there was blood on her hands but now there is only Irene and the heat between her thighs, her breath like a prayer in the dark.

_(like salvation like repentance like a hermit in the woods starved and lonely and enduring to atone for crimes she had committed in arrogant foolishness out of rage and lost love)_

Later, Joan falls asleep in Irene's arms, her body coming down from a high of adrenaline and grief, food forgotten on their table along with the cell phone carrying a number she would have to face in the morning of tomorrow's sun.

;

Before she leaves to find the person on the other end of the text, Irene kisses her and pleads, "Be safe, Joan. Whatever you do, be _safe._ And please let me know if you need anything."

She has already done enough though, this extraordinary woman who loves a creature composed of torn ragged fabric and murder. If Joan could ask for anything more than the air in her lungs, every gentle seam holding her flesh together would burst.


	2. Signifying Nothing

Killing never gets easier. Enduring the sight of blood oozing over skin, the last gasping breath of a dying man- that doesn't get easier either. Knowing that the person she is interrogating, the person who is last in a long line of men who have been interrogated before him

( _torturing- the word is torturing)_

doesn't help one bit. Blood is blood is all the same and it always leaves behind an empty husk and someone to cry over the corpse.

She should know.

;

Joan walks into the brownstone at three in the morning, reeking of blood and sweat.

Irene glances at her unflinching and jaw set, sitting on the kitchen table with a book in her hands, and says quietly, “I’ll make coffee,”

“Tea,” Joan corrects, her voice hoarse.

She nods and heads into the kitchen and Joan follows with weary trembling steps. She has to concentrate just to put one foot in front of the other. Every muscle feels exhausted. She leans against the counter and says, “I have an address.”

Wide green eyes when Irene turns to ask, “How?” Joan doesn’t answer and, after glancing over her blood-soaked clothes and bone-tired expression, Irene changes her question to “Where?”

“London," Joan murmurs without taking her eyes off Irene's mesmerizing fingers filling a pot with water, spooning in sugar and loose tea leaves

( _delicate like the little granules of sugar, all crystal and transparent_ )

and connected to Joan's heart with threads of silver and gold.

By the time she looks up at her face, Irene looks confused. "London?" she repeats. "I met him in-" she cuts off suddenly and her eyes meet Joan with hesitation, but the other woman only shrugs and nods.

"I know. Don't worry, I'm not going to break down into a sobbing mess."

"No," Irene smiles. "You wouldn't. So when are we going?"

"We? You're staying in New York, safe and preferably with Bell's protection."

"I'm coming with you," Irene's eyes narrow. "Unless you want to tell your police friends exactly why you want me to have protection, which is probably going to involve a confession at some point involving Pike. I'm not sure how much Bell would appreciate the effort- that is, if _he_ lets you go to London alone."

"It's better for all of us if I do," Joan shrugs, pulling down mugs to strain their tea into. "No one else gets hurt this way."

"Implying what? That you will?" Irene snaps. The pot beside her boils and hisses, steam rising into the air. "Stop being such a fucking martyr. There are people here who care for you and are willing to help if you would stop being so thick."

She always has a little speech prepared for the occasion, something angry or consoling for Joan's benefit. Joan only shrugs and turns down the gas. "I don't know what I'll be up against in London and I don't want to take needless risks."

"Are you calling me a risk?" Irene's voice lowers and she steps forward. Just like that- another being entirely, seductive without meaning to be, convincing without any arguments. And Joan melts when she kisses her lightly, her lips like velvet and longing. "I don't care how impressive you think you are, Joan. You're not going to London without me."

"Okay, I'm not," Joan agrees, burying her nose in the crook of Irene's neck.

"I can't lose you, Joan. I love you."

It doesn't even matter what kind of love, platonic or otherwise, Joan automatically tells her back, "I love you, too," and she would carve her heart out of her chest with a steel scalpel, its nerve endings of glinting threads still attached, to prove it.

;

For obvious reasons, Joan doesn't bring her pistol on the plane to London. Unarmed and anxious, she reads over the address constantly until she has it inadvertently memorized, sitting on the lousy mattress of the slightly above seedy hotel. Irene has gone to bring back something to eat and Joan is halfway tempted to leave on the spot, assuring Irene remains safe.

But knowing Irene, she would still find a way to pursue her to the mysterious address. All Joan knows of it is that whoever lives there is responsible for ordering the murder of Sherlock and commanding the majority of the drug supply from Florida. It would scare her if she hadn't already spent the last 48 hours murdering one man and torturing another. To falter now would be her own fault.

(s _herlock would be disappointed if you falter now- would you do that to his memory?)_

So she waits until Irene returns and Irene, of course, tries to convince her to wait until tomorrow morning, after a night of rest and hopefully assistance from Scotland Yard.

Joan scoffs at the suggestion, asks, "Can you drive on the left?"

"Nobody drives. We'll take a cab."

"I don't want you coming up to the flat with me."

"Joan. We already talked about this. If it's dangerous, you shouldn't be going in alone anyway."

" _If_ it's dangerous," Joan emphasizes, "aren't we better off playing our cards close to our chest?"

Irene stares up at her and quietly says, "People don't die playing cards. They die when they meddle in international drug affairs."

_(or falling off buildings)_

"What are you even planning on doing once you're at the flat?" Irene asks.

"I find out who lives inside. Who is at fault for Sherlock's death and this whole investigation."

"And then? Are you going to make a citizen's arrest?" Irene sneers.

Joan knows Irene isn't angry, not really, just worried. She thinks it's foolish; she thinks all of this is impulsive. It's Joan trying to prove herself or get revenge. Joan finishes eating and stands. "I'll wait for you outside when you're done with… whatever it is you're trying to talk me into. I'm not changing my mind."

She grabs her bag and leaves the hotel room, standing outside in the parking lot, breathing into her hands and hoping her anxiety doesn't become a panic attack. What _is_ she going to do? Fight? Run? Anger pounds inside her chest knowing the person she seeks is almost before her. Joan's fingers are shaking and she wishes more than anything she still had her pistol. But instead all she has is an address and an overwhelming sense of guilt.

( _and she has irene)_

Within minutes, Irene walks down the steps and says, "I doubt you bothered to convert any money at the airport."

"I didn't," Joan admits.

"But of course you're well prepared for this encounter," Irene's voice drips sarcasm and Joan clenches her jaw together, pretending she doesn't hear. Irene hails them a cab and Joan hands over the address. The trip is mercifully silent. Joan feels jittery, pulse fast, tense and ready to pounce. She stands at the precipice of her wits- either that, or she has none left. Irene, alternately, leans back and keeps her eyes shut until the cab stops and the driver announces their arrival.

It's an apartment building that looks well maintained, warm glowing lights inside and a buzzer with a camera up front.

"What's the plan?" Irene whispers.

Joan doesn't have one. She improvises, "We get in, I go up, you wait in the lobby. If I don't call in ten minutes, assume something bad happened. Get the cops."

"That's the worst plan I've heard. Ever. I know revenge makes people do mad things but really, this has got to be crossing some sort of line because it sounds like an absolute joke," Irene's bright green eyes stare at Joan until she wants to squirm or slam her fist into a wall. Instead, she walks purposefully to the apartment without answering, watching as a man exits the building and she catches the door before it closes.

"You're in or you're out," Joan hisses.

Irene follows her in and Joan breathes a quick sigh of relief she hadn't realized she was holding. There is no receptionist, though a desk stands empty at the lobby. "I'll wait here?" Irene asks, the only hint that she's nervous coming from her tapping foot. "Give me your phone."

"Why?"

"So I can put it on silent since I don't expect you to have remembered."

She didn't. Joan digs it out of her pocket and hands it over, adding. "Ten minutes, okay?"

"I'm going with five, actually," Irene snaps, sliding the phone back into her pocket, and Joan doesn't argue with the five minute deduction.

The elevator doors are already open when Joan slips in. The address flits in and out of her mind, the only thing more apparent being her heart in her ears, loud to the point of suffocation. Joan stops at the third floor and counts doors until she reaches the one scrawled on the worn slip of paper in her bag. She stands still for a long moment, remembering her five minute time limit and remembering how utterly defenseless she will be if the person opening the door wants to kill her, then she knocks.

Sherlock opens the door.

Her heart drops. Surprise registers on her features first, his hollow cheeks and red lips and his arms reaching out for her-

Joan's world fades to black. She doesn't quite lose consciousness, vague noises reaching her ears and limbs moving, but she isn't aware of her surroundings until her eyes flicker open again. Her head aches distinctly. She can't move her arms or legs, feeling rope around wrists and ankles.

"Ngh," Joan mumbles unintelligibly.

"No, no, don't speak. It'll make your headache worse," he says and his voice, jesus his voice

( _is what she dreams of, is what she has nightmares of, is everything and nothing and he's not dead and she can't breathe, lungs struggling to inflate and throat forgetting to open and)_

"Sherlock," she whispers, eyes focusing on his figure sitting on the chair before her. "You- you're alive."

"And Watson, you're _here_. Which, as you can imagine, considerably throws a damper on the party."

"Party," she mutters, head still throbbing. "What did you do to me?"

His face contorts into a smile, one of the manic ones that she thinks she knows well- but then, she doesn't quite know any of this at all. "I didn't expect to see you. I pinched a nerve, nothing too major, just enough so it would make you fall asleep for a few minutes."

Realization dawns on her, slow like honey pouring over her senses. She tries to pull at her wrists but the knots are too tight. "It's you," she manages to say clearly. "You did it."

"I did," he agrees affably.

( _and does he sound proud?_ )

"Why?"

Sherlock sighs and crosses his legs, settling in for a seemingly long story. "It started out as a way to spite my father and further my own drug habits, if I will be honest, and it soon spiraled into a challenge, something I had not done before. To delve into a matter so fundamentally complex that it spans several continents and touches upon all the major organizations in the world- and to operate all of them from under a guise. Oh, Watson, you cannot imagine how thrilling it is, particularly once I was sober. And that is to your credit, I will confess."

Her name coming from his lips sounds dirty. She can hardly sort out his words, let alone his meanings. It only makes her dizzier. "Sherlock, please," she says. "I don't understand."

"If you're playing dumb on purpose, please don't for my benefit. If you're pretending to be unaware so I will save your life, please also don't since it won't work. The only remaining question is, how did you find me?"

Joan inhales deeply, trying to clear her mind. He's right. There's no need for pretenses. She just needs to stall; she needs to wait him out- until what? Until Irene comes checking up and he knocks her out too? His ties are strong; Joan pulls her wrist against them. She needs to distract him and formulate a plan. She offers a curve of her lip. "You were sloppy. I found your trail."

"I left no trail, Watson," his voice is sharp.

"Are you sure?" she returns, her own voice like a blade itching to dig into his skin. "Then how _did_ I do it? You tell me, you're the genius in the room."

He raises an eyebrow then, and he thinks. "It's only been four days. Four days since my funeral."

"Can I ask about that?" Joan asks. "Did you pretend to be dead for our sake? Did you lay there in the morgue, grey make up caked on your face, watching me identify your body and die a thousand times? Did it remind you of when I watched Ty suffer in the hospital? Did you get up afterward and walk away without once thinking what you did to me? Or to Irene? Jesus, she fucking loved you."

"Ah, yes, how is my lovely Irene doing? Not getting along without me, is that right?"

Joan smirks. "Actually, I think she's getting on just fine, considering we're sleeping together now that you're not around." Joan's not sure why she adds the last bit in, to goad him or make him jealous, maybe, or just to prove they don't need him. It's strange for her to even utter the words.

It seems to work. Sherlock's smile disappears.

"I did it because you were both boring me. That life you two seem to enjoy so much, that _domestic_ life," he spits it like an insult, "it was grating and exhausting. I felt I could no longer keep up a charade of goodness."

"Prison won't be as boring, I assure you," she says.

A muscle in Sherlock's jaw twitches. "When this conversation is over, I assure you Watson, you will be in no position to call the police or send me to prison."

"Are you going to kill me?" she asks, the very real possibility occurring to her suddenly. Fear doesn't follow on its footsteps, like she had once thought it would. Only a renewed sense of purpose and determination that Irene will not get dragged into this. She's sure her five minutes are up, that Irene will knock on the door any minute now.

Sherlock leans closer, uncrossing his legs, "Would you like that?"

"You think I have a death wish? You think losing you would result with me wanting to be dead?"

"Why else would you come here alone?"

"What makes you think I'm alone?" she retorts. "Gregson and Bell both know exactly where I am. The cops are probably already on their way," Joan bluffs.

"You're lying," Sherlock calls her on it instantly. "They'd never let you in here alone if they thought you'd be in danger. There are procedures in place – by both the NYPD and the Met – and considering how surprised you were when you saw me, it is not unreasonable to guess I was not who you were expecting to see here. And a woman like you? Stubborn and impulsive? Oh, Watson, you leave me no choice but to correctly surmise you are lying."

A knock on the door interrupts their conversation. Joan's heart sinks. "Who is that?" Sherlock demands sharply. "Who did you bring with you?"

_Irene._

Sherlock starts for the door and Joan blurts, "Don't."

That only makes him smile and he asks, "Is it Irene?" Her face must give away her surprise because he smirks and adds, "The power of deduction never does fail, does it? Oh, this should be fun."

She wants to squeeze her eyes shut, she wants to scream at him to stop or manage to get out of her bindings and…

_(she still doesn't know what to do; did she ever?)_

But when Sherlock does open the door, it isn't Irene on the other end. It's a gun held by a man with graying hair. "Sherlock Holmes?" the man asks, his other hand producing a pair of manacles, "You're under arrest."

Behind him stands Irene with her phone pressed to one ear. And when their eyes meet, Joan knows.

 ;

"How'd you know?" Joan asks her later mid-kiss, wide-eyed golden Irene who tastes like salvation. "How'd you know he didn't have a gun, or that he was going to open the door instead of killing me and leaving?"

"He's an asshole, yeah, but he's not stupid," Irene answers, warm and constant and leaning closer.

Joan pulls back farther. "It would have been the clever thing to do, getting rid of me immediately."

"No, no – that's not what I meant. Sherlock Holmes could never kill you. Me? Maybe. But you?" Irene shakes her head. "The drugs and lying are nothing; he could never forgive himself for killing you. He loves you too much."

When Irene's lips return to the kiss, Joan doesn't stop her. She only mumbles, "It was a stupid plan."

"Still a plan," Irene replies and for the first time in weeks, Joan thinks that it doesn't matter. It's over.

( _is it ever?_ )

 ;

Back in New York, when Gregson offers her Sherlock's old spot as the consulting detective for the NYPD, Joan nearly refuses. She nearly tells him, _no thanks, I've had enough_. And she has.

But then she thinks of him, of the man she had spent her life with, not the other one who betrayed her, not the mask over the face but the face itself – manic and insistent and wild. She thinks of that man who had fallen and died and lay silent in the morgue with his eyes closed.

Finally, she accepts the badge and shakes Gregson's hand and says, "Yes. I'll take his place."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late! I hit a very rough patch near the last few paragraphs on how to end the story. I'm still not completely satisfied with it.


End file.
